The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-01-22
A PerplexIng Problem
New York sun.


prisons of this State without providing
means for any other system of labor as a
substitute, is having lamentable effect
upon the physical health and moral con-
dirion of the convicts. That is the sub
ject to which Mr.. Isaac V. Baker. Jr.,
the Superintendent of State Prisons,
gives his chief attention in the annual
report which he has just transmitted to
the Legislature.
The surplus of earnings over expend-
itures has fallen off rapidly, from more
than $40, 900 in 1884 to about s., 800 In
1885, and this year the balance will be
on the other side of the account, unless
the Legislature authorizes some prac-
teal plan for putting the convicts at
work.
But the pecuniary loss is a very minor
evil as compared with the injury done 10
the convicts in body, mind, and morals
by enforced idleness. The contrast be-
tween the effect of work and idleness is
very strikingly shown in the reports
from the two prisons, Sing Sing and
Auburn. At Sing Sing, with popula-
ton of 1882, all the productive labor
was employed during the year under tie
contract system, old contracts still con-
tinuing in force, and the surplus of
earnings over expenditures for care and
maintenance was Sc, 066. The disci-
pline of the prison was better than ever
before, and no prisoner was discharged
who could not read and write.
The prison physician reports the gem
eral physical condition of the inmates as
Of 1.-The highest ORDER" and adds his
opinion that there is not a prison in the
United States which can exhibit in all
respects better record. Auburn prison,
with a population of 1854, on the other
hand, cost the State more than $50, 200
above its earnings. because of the ina
bility to provide employment for a
great part of its inmates. Large num-
hers of those who have been so long
without work." the chaplain reports,
seem 70 be falling into kind OF semi
fatuOus condition, some very near IN
sanity, forty-three having been sent to
the asylum for insane convicts during
the year, while immoral habits are send
ing many to the hospital" The Warden
reports that lin paired health is apparent
in many cases, disobedience and a reck-
less disregard of the discipline and rules
Of the prison are more frequent, and the
evil tendencies of bad natures are grad
ually but surely developed"
1t was, of course, inevitable that such
would be the effects of idleness on the
prisoners, who are treated with an in
humanity that shocks our civilization
when they are penned up for years with
out being allowed an opportunity to en-
plOy their hands and their minds in
work. As Mr.. Baker says, the convicts
are dealt with more cruelty if they
were doomed to torture. their fingers cut
on and their eyes put out. Moreover, it
10 q great waste of human energy to keep
Thousands of men idle.
The necessity of doing something to
correct this awful evil is made the
49, A. -
more than a thousand men will be re-
leased from contract labor at Sing Sing,
80 that that prison will begin to suffer
from the decentralization now so appar-
ent at Auburn. Then about l 900 men
in the two prisons will be without work.
The Legislature therefore has before
1T no more pressing duty than that of re-
heving these prisoners from the torture
to which they will be subjected But
the problem it has to solve is a difficult
one. 1t has been proved that under the
contract system the State makes money
out OF the prisons and the con-
victs are protected in their health
and morals. But free labor cries out
against that system as involving be-
tween itself and the cheaper labor of the
prisons. A criminal, it says, must not
be- allowed to take the bread out of the
mouth of the honest man. Mr.. Baker
contends, however, that it is not posi-
BILE to devise any system of prison labor,
unless at ''the sacrifice of the men in the
prisons and the further sacrifice of the
interests of the State and of society"
The piece-price plan, under which the
State supplies the labor at a stipulated
price per piece, involves competition;
and even If the State account plan be
adopted. competition is equally newt
able. The prison becomes a manufac-
tory, the public furnishing the capital,
and therefore it is rival TO outside man
ufactories.
How to reconcile the interests of the
prisoners with the demands of free labor
Is problem of which we have not vet
found the solution. Meantime the peo-
pie OF the State are concerned in the
matter, for the more the cost of the pris-
ons is increased the more they have to
pay in taxes imposed upon every individ-
nal in ha